China Trip, Day 1, Part 1

We went to Beijing last weekend. We made reservations awhile ago, but then we were debating whether or not to go right now. For one thing, it felt strange to be planning a happy vacation to a country where so many people were still recovering from the massive devastation caused by the earthquake, and mourning the loss of their loved ones. It felt like we should be going to help out in some way instead. But Beijing was not an area hit by the earthquake, and we felt like it was still a good time for us to go. Also, China has recently experienced an outbreak of hand-foot-and-mouth disease that many children have died from so I was, of course, concerned about that. But Mike talked to one of the doctors he works with and the doctor assured him that it wasn't really something to be worried about, and to just use lots of hand sanitizer and get away from anyone that seemed sick. We left on Saturday. Four days, and half a bottle of hand-sanitizer later, we returned home, no worse for the wear. We got back yesterday. It was a quick, but very exhausting trip.

On Saturday, we woke up early so that we could leave the apartment by 6, and get to the airport on time for the two hour flight to Beijing. We got to Beijing around lunchtime, and our day was very busy until about 8:30 that night. It was also much hotter in Beijing than it has been in Seoul, so it was a tough day for the kids. But, I think they had a few fun moments. Here is the first part of our first day. We took lots of pictures, so the whole trip will take several posts.

Our first stop was a restaurant (Chinese, of course) for lunch. I was surprised by how similar the food we ate on the trip was to Chinese food in America. I always thought that the American version of Chinese food was totally not authentic. But, for the most part, the food there wasn't as different as I thought it would be (at least not at the places we went to). Some of the food was totally new to me, though.

Our next stop was the Temple of Heaven. I wish I could tell you more about all the things we saw during the trip, but my attention was pretty much focused on trying to keep the kids happy, so I didn't learn a whole lot about any of the places we went to. But if you want to know more, you can learn all about them on the internet anyway, right? The building in the picture below is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, and I do remember that it was an architectural wonder for its time because it was a 12 story building made entirely of wood. There weren't even any iron nails used. It was originally built in 1420.

This building was one of the many other Halls on the temple grounds.

The park around the Temple of Heaven was full of people doing all kinds of things. Mostly, there were groups of people playing instruments and singing together. Some were just hanging out and talking or playing cards, and others were trying to sell stuff.

These ladies were dancing around, waving long ribbons.

Here are some short video clips I took while we were walking through the long walkway that led to the Hall of Prayer for good Harvests. I filmed this on our way out. You might get motion sickness (since I was walking while filming), but you can hear the people singing.